


Breath from your lungs

by phalangine



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, More fantasy?, Timeline What Timeline, r'hllor: [exists] davos: bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 00:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: Undine's knight was untrue, so she killed him. Things are a bit more complicated for Davos.





	Breath from your lungs

**Author's Note:**

> 1) the title is a reworking of a line from one retelling of _undine's curse_
> 
> 2) scenes alternate between sequential events in the present and scattered events in the past
> 
> 3) the canon-typical violence tag does include discussions of stannis burning people alive and effects of it
> 
> 4) as always, the characters here are a fusion of got and asoiaf but leaning heavily toward got  
4a. the whole gods situation is a lot more like greek mythology but this is an au and davos isn't human so he's got some different thoughts

It was an odd impulse to give into, Davos thinks as he takes in the fire surrounding Stannis’ encampment, R’hllor’s might made into a form men can understand. Beings like him generally don’t get involved in the lives of humans. 

Yet as Davos watched the young lord stare out at the ships blockading his castle with nothing in his belly but pride, Davos had thought it would be a simple kindness to bring him something to eat. Human lifetimes had come and gone in the time since Davos had starved, but the memory of it had never truly faded. Even when his human life ended and the sea brought him into his new existence, the pangs of emptiness had come with him.

So he took a little boat, filled it with all the onions and meat he could bargain for from the passing farmer with the low-brimmed hat, and guided it past the ships of men keeping the castle isolated.

It was easier just to send the boat ahead on currents and walk across the water, but he’d forgotten, in his isolation, that the time of humans knowing his kind exist had ended.

Stannis came down to see Davos in the castle’s watery cells. Davos could have left, of course, but he’d been curious. The waters weren’t frothing from battle. They hadn’t risen with the newly dead. Yet this place was home to a battle nonetheless, and this man was at the heart of it.

Marya always did say his curiosity would get him killed, and Davos supposes she’s always been right.

Ahead of him, no longer in need of onions or watermen, Stannis beckons Melisandre forward.

She takes her place at Stannis’ side, the heat of the Lord of Light passing through the humans harmlessly but catching on Davos, who only looks human.

He doesn’t like R’hlorr, as any water doesn’t like heat, and the god knows it.

Davos is a lowly waterman, a spirit chained to the earth by the sea. He isn’t worth the ire of a god.

Yet.

Melisandre lays her hand on Stannis’ arm, and Davos thinks of the North. Ice is only another shape of water, and Jon Snow had listened to Davos with the sort of gravity that used to surround the sailors who called upon the watermen to protect their ships. Davos can’t go back to him, and he knows that. He gave Snow all the counsel he could, and the oath Davos swore Stannis- not the one binding them as knight and lord, the one binding Davos to Stannis as water to blood- wouldn’t let Davos leave even if he had to.

He doesn’t even want to, really. He’s still Stannis’ friend. He still belongs wherever Stannis is, even in the middle of an inferno.

So Davos will die here, in the middle of a god putting on a display no different from a blacksmith pumping his bellows just to stoke the flames. He will die on the land, far from the touch of the sea.

Davos is old enough not to resent his death. But to die for nothing, to die discarded like a ripped tunic after years of faithful service, to die without so much as his king’s hand clasping his in recognition…

Fire evaporates water, but light cannot reach the depths of the ocean. Davos would like to be allowed his final rest there, where it’s so cold nothing can survive, not even the monsters men like Stannis don’t know to fear.

Melisandre prays for a sign of favor from her god so great it will make their enemies’ knees shake, and Davos feels R’hlorr answer before the fire materializes.

Salla told Davos not to bind himself to Stannis.

_ Water must be free, Davos, _ he said. _ It can be harnessed, but it must be able to flow. You shouldn’t tie yourself to someone so inflexible. You’ll die for him, and you don’t even know it. Worse- he won’t understand it._

Davos feels the renewed flames scorch the earth. R’hlorr’s blast is not a natural wildfire burning out the old so the new can thrive. It’s pure death; the hope of water stolen, leaving nothing but salt to poison the earth.

Stannis can’t feel it, Davos cannot warm him, and R’hlorr will not speak. Melisandre, gifted though she is, doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Around them, the trees begin to shake, and Davos closes his eyes, the fury of wasted spring shaking through him.

It was an odd impulse, he thinks, but he chose to follow it. The least he can do- the least he _must_ do- is see it through.

* * *

“Are you alone, Davos?”

Stannis is perhaps twenty-four, the father of another dead son. Selyse didn’t ask to be left alone, but Stannis had commanded that she not be disturbed. Davos can’t tell if this from anger or Stannis’ idea of kindness.

Cressen had suggested they not encourage her to mourn, but Stannis hasn’t chosen to enforce it. Selyse is free to do what she will without censure- she doesn’t neglect her duties, as Stannis reminds him. Davos can’t tell what to make of that either.

He can feel Selyse crying in the room she nominally shares with Stannis. Stannis hasn’t slept beside her since he got her with child, if then.  
  
Davos keeps these thoughts and the continuing of Selyse’s hot tears to himself.

“I serve you, My Lord,” he replies, pulling his thoughts back to Stannis. “I’ve made myself a home at your side as you bade me, and I’m never short of work to do in your castle. How can I be alone?”

“Not here,” Stannis corrects sharply. “I mean as a creature. Are there others like you?”

Davos remembers Salla and Marya and their ships of nigh-immortal spirits riding the ocean just to be buffeted by it. No fear of drowning, no fear of dying without food or water. No fear of storms and wrecks and desperate acts of survival. They didn’t see land for human years sometimes, their strength and joy only growing the greater their distance from the land that once held them captive.

He remembers the feeling of being part of the ocean, his thoughts distant and irrelevant. He wasn’t himself- he wasn’t only himself. He was every drop of water, warmed by the sun and jostled by ships as equally as he was cold and still and so far below the fish that the creatures never seen by men like Stannis.

The water spoke to him, and he felt it speak.

Marya told him not to believe everything it said; sailors learn to lie from the sea.

Stannis can lie as easily as any man, but it isn’t in his nature to be deceitful. He merely has a goal and orients himself toward it. Honor doesn’t win battles. It certainly doesn’t win thrones.

There’s a throne at the bottom of the sea nearer Essos than Westeros.

He smiles fondly. “There are.”

“Do you miss them?”

It’s a strange question coming from Stannis, but then, Stannis isn’t unaware that Davos enjoys company. He has no way to know of the second oath Davos swore, so as far as he knows, Davos could simply tire of life on land and return to his home whenever it pleases him.

Caretaking may not be natural to Stannis, but ensuring his vassals’ loyalties haven’t wavered is another matter.

“Sometimes.”

Stannis gives him a long, measuring look, and Davos scratches his beard, searching for a way to convey a feeling entirely beyond human experience.

“All water is water,” he says eventually, when no better explanation comes. “Wherever it is, whatever is put into it, it’s still water. Watermen like me, we’re the same. We live wherever water can be found. If the only water is another waterman, then we live in him.”

It falls short of anything Stannis can make sense of; Davos can see that plainly. Stannis doesn’t press further, though, merely nods and turns his attention back to his books.

Davos watches him and listens to the steady waves of water pounding in Stannis’ veins assuring him his lord is alive and well even as the tears his lady is weeping tell him she is not.

* * *

R’hlorr’s display of favor burns high and hard and bright. Davos isn’t the only one who looks away from the fire; more and more of the men cover their eyes as the fire continues.

It runs out of earth to burn, and rather than let it die, R’hllor feeds it himself.

Distantly, Davos wonders if the Lord of Light understands that men need the dark and doesn’t care or if he intends to turn humanity into creatures of eternal light at the cost of their earth.

He wonders, too, if R’hllor cares that the other gods and older forces might object to this world becoming his firepit.

The dark depths of the ocean have never felt so far away, yet as Davos looks over at Stannis, that distance feels far smaller than the one between Davos and his king.

* * *

The houses of Westeros have sayings- “house words” Stannis calls them. They all make Stannis frown like he’s fighting a headache, but Davos is fond of the Lannisters’. It reminds him of the greeting watermen are given when they first wake up into their new lives.

_ For thy love and loyalty, the sea has remade thee. _

Stannis has little love for anything, including R’hlorr, but the Lord of Light has still seen fit to transform him.

Davos has seen the changes and tried to steer Stannis back to his original path, where duty and order led him to claim the throne, but Stannis has become resistant. The clear rules he once followed so resolutely have become malleable.

A king has a duty to his subjects; Stannis knows this. He may send them to die for him in battle, but the blood Melisandre bids him spill is simple slaughter. He knows this, too, yet he continues.

_ What would the man who sailed against Joffrey make of this? _ Davos wonders.

The longer R’hlorr brings Stannis victories, the less Stannis wants to hear from Davos. Even counsel on lesser matters fails to satisfy him, Davos’ words disappearing like drops of water on a forge-hot blade.

Around him, the dead feel like sand, their lifeblood consumed by flames.

* * *

For a moment, as a wave of heat passes through him, Davos wonders if this isn’t the best way. Stannis will get the throne. The war will end. The kingdom can unite against the white walkers below the blaze of R’hlorr.

Davos will be freed of this interminable heat.

* * *

It’s no surprise that Salla doesn’t like Stannis.

“You gave up your fingers for _ him?”_ he asks, pointing at Stannis. “Why would you do that?”

Davos fights a sigh. “Only the tips and only on the right.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?

Salla gives him a watery frown. “What do you see in him? Show me. Because all I can see is a man who will live and die like every other.”

Davos shrugs. “He’s a good man, Salla.”

“Then why does he surround himself with all this fire?” Salla folds his arms across his chest. They ripple as he moves and when he falls still, his form indefinite. “It isn’t natural to live in so much light. You know this.”

He’s right, but Davos has already made his oaths.

“You never belonged to Westeros,” Salla points out. “You’re barely Andal. Yet you’ve adopted their culture so well, you can’t even see what it’s doing to you. Giving up the sea… I’ll never understand it.”

There’s no reply Davos can give him that won’t just irritate him further, so Davos says nothing.

After a while, Salla stands up from the fountain, his body solidifying and taking on the appearance of human flesh as he changes from water to man. “This is too stressful. Where are the beautiful women? The land has one good thing, and if I must see this much of it, I deserve something good.”

Davos rolls his eyes but leads the way.

* * *

It isn’t the best way to reunite the kingdom, though. Davos knows that.

If he weren’t so caught up in his new god, Stannis would know it as well.

Around them, R’hlorr’s display is only growing, draining the land around them and reducing the grass to dust.

As leaves disintegrate off their branches, flash-dried to crumble at even the slightest breeze, Davos spots two sets of glowing gray eyes fixed on Stannis.

For a moment, one set flicks toward him, but when he inclines his head, they disappear.

Dread settles in his gut. It isn’t only the sea that’s witnessing Stannis’ fury.

* * *

Davos isn’t affected by the cold. He used to be; he remembers shivering through long nights and feeling sickening numbness in his limbs, if numbness can be a feeling.

He’s rarely bothered by heat. He used to feel that, too, though. His back would grow slick and stick his clothes to his skin. Sweat would drip into his eyes and sting. His skin would turn red and ache and peel after too long in the sun.

After waking up in the sea, he’s only stopped by extremes. The North was a danger to him only as it was to the men, and unlike them, he can be freed from the ice with a fire, and the heat of places like Dorne only stops him if he isn’t allowed shade.

Stannis was always mindful of this.

Melisandre dislikes this. Or perhaps she merely dislikes his greater independence from the god she serves.

Regardless, she dislikes him, and he dislikes her god.

Stannis remains convinced he’s taking neither side.

* * *

After the display ends, Shireen finds him at the far edge of the camp just beyond the boundary R’hlorr set.

It’s petty to cross it just to be beyond the line, but Davos is feeling petty.

Back in the camp, the soldiers are afraid. Their skin is dry, their lips chapped from heat that doesn’t belong in spring. Davos can feel their fear in the tears some of them are shedding.

Others are wary of what’s happening to their boring king, and Davos can feel their anger at Stannis in the shape of their tears.

Shireen doesn’t stop until she’s drawn even with him. “Why is Father doing this?”

Davos shakes his head. There are things children shouldn’t know, even royal ones.

“But you know Father better than anyone.”

“He asks me my thoughts and sometimes shares his own, but he keeps his own counsel,” Davos points out. “On this most of all.”

She reaches for his hand, which he pulled from its glove when he came out here. He needs the reminder sometimes; gods don’t give without taking.

Shireen doesn’t know why his fingers are shorter on that side that the other, and she’s never asked.

Davos has never offered her an explanation. Perhaps he should. She should know the kind of loyalty a good man can inspire.

Dry leaves rattle as a weak breeze moves through the woods.

He doesn’t feel loyal today. He just feels tired.

Their silence continues, her fingers twining wordlessly through his. There’s little comfort to be found in the camp; he can understand why, in the middle of tumult, she’s come to him. He’s familiar. He’s been her companion when she had no one else.

As Stannis’ ugly daughter, she’s had no one more than anyone.

In the past, he soothed her nightmares, overwhelming her fears with stories of survival, of the sea saving good-hearted men and carrying them home.

“We’ll be all right,” he lies. “You and me, your father and mother. Your uncle. The kingdom. We’ll make it through.”

“How can you know that?” she asks, voice hoarse.

“I’m old, remember? I’ve seen more wars than you’ve seen hot meals. I know when it’s time to give up hope for a good ending.”

She squeezes his hand and lays her head on his arm.

“Are you afraid of R’hlorr?” he asks.

She nods. “Aren’t you?”

Davos considers the question, turning it over and over until it’s just a meaningless lump of sounds like letters used to look before Shireen taught him his letters. All the languages he can speak, and she gave him the first he can read. “I suppose I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Fire always burns itself out. The other Elemis never get hungry, but a fire must be fed. Eventually, this one will run out of things to eat.” Her grip tightens, and he silently strengthens his decision to let her stay in the dark where it’s kinder. “And fire can be made to stop,” he adds. “By water or stone or another flame, it can be quenched. Even R’hlorr can’t overpower the ocean.”

He lets his arm shift into a middle state, neither human nor flowing water, and Shireen shouts in surprise as her sleeve gets wet.

He shouldn’t give up pieces of himself so easily when the temperature is still high enough to wear away at him, but he can survive the loss of this much.

“Come along,” he says, holding out his hand. “It’s time for bed.”

She takes it, and by the time they reach her tent, she’s nearly asleep on her feet. 

* * *

They want to ask. Davos can see it in their faces.

Robert has stayed sober through the meal despite his longing glances at the cups in other men’s hands. This is the first meal Davos has shared with him, if sitting at a table while the men around him can be considered sharing, but from what Stannis has said, sobriety is unusual in the king. The shrewd looks he keeps giving Davos aren’t discreet, and they aren’t meant to be.

Renly is less overt, but Davos can feel the weight of his attention.

Stannis knows what his brothers are thinking, but he has no means of preventing it.

In the end, it’s Robert who asks.

“So, where are they?”

Renly winces.

Stannis puts his knife down. The sound it makes is hardly worth noting on its own, but by virtue of Stannis’ hand placing it, it becomes loud. “Robert.”

“King Robert.”

Stannis’ face flushes, his jaw working. “_ King _ Robert-”

“Well?” Robert asks, looking away from Stannis to squint at Davos. “Where are our parents?”

“In Shipbreaker Bay,” Davos replies. “Or so I’m told.”

Robert’s eyes narrow, but he’s only a man. Davos isn’t bothered by axes or nooses, and Robert doesn’t have the creativity to think of how to do Davos actual harm.

“Now listen-”

Davos shakes his head. He can feel Stannis’ discomfort, but the only way to stop this conversation is to see it through and be done with it. “Do you know every man in your castle?” he asks. “If I removed all the markers, could you identify your ancestors solely by the ground they occupy? The ocean is far larger than a castle, King Robert.” He looks over Robert and sees a hundred dead kings whose names he never bothered to learn. Davos can be polite for Stannis’ sake, but he’s too old for games. “I doubt I’d been near Storm’s End in at least two centuries before I came to serve Stannis. I don’t know where your parents’ bodies are.” He could probably find them, but it would bring no one peace. “I do know this, however. The ocean is the largest graveyard in the world, and every body lost to it is remembered and accounted for.”

He’s thinking mostly of Stannis as he says the last. Robert is only using this to unsettle Stannis, an easy but winning strategy. Renly isn’t above the same game, but he wouldn’t have picked their parents, if only because they mean so little to him. But Stannis, ever the dutiful middle son, needs to be told that his parents haven’t been washed out of memory.

“Well, that’s grim,” Robert grumbles. “Don’t you have any better stories?”

Davos glances at Stannis, who’s giving him a look Davos can’t interpret.

Stannis inclines his head.

It’s unpleasant, but having made his point, Davos supposes it’s better to leave the king happy than rankled. “Well, I did once fuck a woman in the crow’s nest during a storm.”

Renly grimaces, as do the king’s wife and Stannis, but Robert lets out a booming laugh as he gestures for a woman to pour him wine.

The story is mostly lies spun from other men’s lies, but it puts the king in a good mood, which lessens Stannis’ frown.

If Davos were a little older, he might think to question why that matters.

* * *

A commotion pulls Davos from his tent early in the morning. His mouth feels tacky, and he’s miserably running his tongue along his teeth as he follows the line of men to the center of the noise.

On the ground is a man. He doesn’t look like one, dead as he is.

The soldiers don’t know what to make of him, but Davos does. He pushes the rest of the way through the men until he breaks through. He hadn’t thought there was another waterman here, but this sort of death isn’t one human men would encounter.

Every drop of moisture was drained from the poor creature’s body.

It’s the one true death watermen die. So far from water they can’t be recalled to the ocean to be restored, the shells structures they create to look like men dry up, and they dry up inside them.

Davos didn’t know, but R’hllor must have.

His anger at the god must be the reason it takes Davos so long to recognize the ring on the body’s finger. A simple band with a trident melted to it, a boy’s idea of a glorious symbol.

What happens next escapes him, but Davos must do a number of things, because the next moment he’s conscious of what he’s doing, he’s sitting at the edge of a muddy lake, a horse grazing on the withered grass nearby, the dead man lying on his lap.

Stannis is standing a few paces away.

“How do you know my scribe?”

Davos chokes on a laugh. “I’d ask how you know my son, but that’s how.”

“Your son?” Davos can hear the confusion in Stannis’ voice. “You have children?”

“Of a sort.” He brushes his hand over the brittle strands of Matthos’ hair. “Not by blood.” Davos shifts, and the ring catches in the harsh sunlight as Matthos is jostled as well. “I’d wanted children before the sea took me, and so had Marya. I suppose he was the water’s way of giving us what we couldn’t have.” He touches Matthos’ frail fingers and wonders if Stannis is remembering his own sons. “Once he’d done all the growing our kind can do, he wanted to leave- the world is big, and he wanted to be part of it. He told Marya he’d found a good lord who’d accept his service, one he believed in.”

For a long moment, Stannis says nothing.

“He arrived yesterday.”

Davos looks out across the murky water and thinks of Matthos’ grand ideas. It will have to do. “At least he didn’t suffer for long, then.”

Stannis is restless; his blood is pounding. “I don’t know who killed him, Davos, but I will find out.”

The oath Davos swore is bitter on his tongue; it makes the sour taste in his mouth when he woke up seem almost pleasant.

“I know who killed him, Your Grace,” he says slowly.

“Who then?” Stannis demands. “Tell me, and I’ll see justice done. You know I will.”

“I know you would if it were possible,” Davos tells him, though he has his doubts, “but even you can’t put a god on trial.”

* * *

Davos is working on reading the lines of letters Shireen wrote out for him earlier that she claims spell words when Stannis asks, “Are there others like you?”

Davos blinks at him. “There are other watermen, yes.”

“I meant, is water the only element that can do to people what it did to you?” Stannis clarifies.

“No,” Davos says, looking back at the letters. He doesn’t like the look in Stannis’ eyes. “The wind can, though I’ve only met two, and one was by accident.” He frowns at one collection of letters, not trusting the repeated letter in the middle. “The earth makes claims as well. More often than the water, I think. It’s difficult to say, though. The ones I’ve met have mostly been creatures that lived and died before our kind. Hard to talk to people you don’t have a language in common with.” He looks up from the letters, a memory coming to the surface. “I don’t think most of them can communicate with each other, actually. Not without the earth, anyway.”

“Not without the earth? What does that mean?”

“It means waterborn and whatever you call what the other elements make don’t speak to each other the way you and I do. Salla and I were born in different countries with different languages. We understood each other from the beginning because water is water. It’s the same everywhere.”

“Saltwater and freshwater,” Stannis points out.

“Water with salt and water without salt. They’re both still water.”

Stannis shakes his head but lets the subject drop.

Davos assumes Stannis will go back to his own work, curiosity as satisfied as it can be, but a moment later, Stannis says, “That isn’t a real word. Our language never has three of the same vowel next to each other in a single word.”

Davos groans and slumps back in his chair. “Why does your daughter torment me? Isn’t it enough that I’m finally learning my letters?”

“Apparently not.”

Davos sighs. “Are any of these real words?”

“I’m not telling you that. It’s your work.”

It would be unseemly to argue, even if Stannis seems to be in a rare lighthearted mood, so Davos doesn’t challenge his assertion that this is Davos’ work on the grounds that Stannis has already helped him.

He does, however, feel light from Stannis’ warmth for the rest of the day.

* * *

The waves of heat wear on Davos. He returned Matthos to the water with Stannis’ help, and though he serves the Lord of Light, Stannis stood by as a witness as Davos waded into the stagnant water and gave his son back to it.

Matthos sank quickly, another cruelty masquerading as kindness.

Davos has had few experiences speaking the farewell, but the words came to him easily.

_ You are not the wind that shudders across the sea. You are the current that runs ever-free. You shall run ever-free. _

If it had been a proper burial, he would have brought Matthos back to the ocean so Davos could give his thanks to it and apologize for not protecting the son he was entrusted with.

Instead, Davos left his son in a dirty lake so he could stand inside a hot tent with a witch and a king who serve a god of flames, listening to them discuss strategies to please their god of death.

“Davos?” Stannis is frowning at him. “What are your thoughts?”

He wasn’t supposed to outlive his son.

Davos bows his head. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I lost track of the conversation.”

Melisandre doesn’t look triumphant, but she doesn’t look sympathetic either.

Davos doesn’t particularly care. Far away, Marya felt Matthos’ death and burial, and the sea is beginning to storm with her.

“Go, then,” Stannis orders, looking back to the map on the desk below his hands. “If you need to take the day to be useful, take it.”

Davos’ place is at Stannis’ side. He swore it.

Marya can rage for both of them.

“Thank you, Your Grace, but I don’t need it.”

* * *

“Can you really make a hurricane?”

Davos huffs from his position on the floor. “Who told you that?”

Shireen shrugs. “I was reading one of the old books in Father’s library, and one of them mentions that elementals can control the elements that made them.”

_ Elementals. _That’s a term Davos hasn’t heard in a long time. He feels himself smile at the reminder of the days before the Faith of the Seven.

“I can’t make hurricanes,” he tells Shireen. “They’re made of wind, and I don’t have any say over that.”

“What can you make, then?”

Davos pauses his search for his other glove. “Rip currents,” he says after a moment. “Whirlpools if I must.”

“Can you shoot water from your hands?”

She’s so serious, so bent on finding an answer, that Davos wishes he could.

“I cannot, I’m sorry to say.”

She sighs at him, disappointed, but Davos has just found his glove. She’ll forget her disappointment once she’s in the saddle.

* * *

It’s mortifying, but the morning after returning Matthos, Davos is summoned to Stannis’ tent- only to find he doesn’t have the strength to get up. He tries, only to sway and overcorrect and land on the ground even farther from upright than he was.

He doesn’t know how long it takes Stannis to decide to come to Davos, but it’s long enough that Davos’ clothes along with his bedsheets are wet from his struggling.

“You can sweat?” Stannis asks.

“I cannot,” Davos replies.

_ This is my blood, _ he thinks. _ This is all that will remain of me when I die, and it doesn’t have the decency to stain. _

“I apologize for not coming to you.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Davos freezes. “Your Grace?”

“You think I can’t see that you aren’t well? I’ve known you a long time, Davos. I know when you’re keeping secrets.”

“I’m not keeping secrets,” Davos argues. “I’m not human. Sometimes I can’t behave like one.”

Stannis isn’t convinced. “Spit it out.”

“There’s nothing to spit.”

Stannis takes two steps closer and squats down, his face nearly even with Davos’ own. “I’m your king, Davos. You swore to serve me faithfully.”

“I did.”

“Then do so.”

There is no king who would ask as much of Davos as Stannis demands.

“He was my only child,” Davos half-lies. “He was a good son; he was a good man. He was meant to outlive me.”

“This is older than that,” Stannis presses. “Don’t lie to me.”

Davos lets out a shuddering breath. “I’ve already given you all the counsel I have, Your Grace. I can give you no more than I already have.”

“Then tell me again.”

The more Stannis argues, the harder it is for Davos to keep his form.

He’s been on land for too long. He should have gotten free years ago. The moment he realized he didn’t want to leave Stannis, he should have run back to the sea.

The moment he saw Stannis in Storm’s End and thought bringing food to him would be anything but a catastrophe, Davos should have thrown himself into the sea and fled to the depths.

No one realizes they’re Undine until it’s too late.

He did none of what he should have done, so here he is, dying for a king who can’t see it.

His lets his eyes fall half-shut. “I don’t trust the witch. I don’t like what the Lord of Light demands from you. You’re a king in your own right. You don’t need this.”

Stannis’ expression turns stormy, but Davos doesn’t look away.

“This is why you keep me with you,” he reminds Stannis. “I don’t flatter you. I don’t pretend not to see your flaws. When I tell you this is the wrong path, I do so because I believe it. You are the rightful king, and everyone knows it. Magic never interested you before.”

“You’ve been resistant to R’hlorr from the beginning,” Stannis counters.

“He’s been leading you toward destruction from the beginning.”

“You’re quite certain.”

“I know you,” Davos says, “but I don’t recognize you.”

Stannis’ gaze flattens, and he straightens, pulling away from Davos. “Then look harder.”

* * *

Marya’s head and torso stick up from the bucket of water in Davos’ room. She’s older than he is, far older. and rarely leaves the open water of the ocean. He hasn't seen her take the shape of a human, especially a convincing one, since before they were given Matthos.

The fact that he can see the disappointment in her barely-human eyes as she voices every half-formed thought he’s forced away only makes it worse.

“You aren’t like him, Davos,” she tells him. “In the structure of his kind, you aren’t his equal, and in the structure of ours, he isn’t yours.”

Davos swirls the glass jar of water he keeps on his desk. It was a gift from Shireen, a ladle of water from a spring men aren’t allowed to bathe in. Davos knows the spring and the regard Westerosi have for it; he remembers pushing Marya into it more than a millennium ago and asking if she didn’t know any more impressive places.

He also knows the price for water from it, which suggests this was a gift not only from Shireen but Stannis as well.

“Yet here I am,” he sighs.

“He’s married, Davos.”

“So are we.”

“We aren’t human, and we don’t worship the Seven. Or the Old Gods. We certainly don’t worship the Lord of Light,” she adds pointedly. “It’s as if you want to die.”

Davos snorts.”I don’t, and you know it.”

“Then why? What made you swear any oath to him?”

In his mind, he sees one of Stannis’ rare smiles. He feels the determination of a man who would die before he’d had time to live. He feels the fear in Stannis’ blood as he shows off his daughter.

He swallows against the remembered weight of Stannis’ hand on his shoulder.

“Perhaps the sea left some part of my humanity.”

“Of course it did. That’s why you’re called a waterman.” Her expression shifts. “Davos.”

He’s had this conversation with himself hundreds of times. He’s tired of it.

“It doesn’t matter why I swore myself to Stannis. I did, and if I die of it, then so be it.”

“‘So be it’?” Marya asks. ‘“It doesn’t matter’? When did you forget how to fight?”

“I can’t fight my king, Marya.”

“I’m not telling you to fight him! I’m telling you to fight yourself- what good will you do him if this is your attitude? The first sign of difficulty and you give up?”

“You don’t know that,” Davos snaps.

“Don’t I?” The outline of Marya’s body shifts, the lines of her arms and face flowing as she lets her grip on her form ease. “I was there when your ship was destroyed, Davos. I saw you fight to survive. You knew you’d die if you didn’t fight. You knew you’d probably die even if you did. You loved the sea as much as a human can, Davos, but you didn’t simply give up and join it. How dare you give up now, after you’ve been given so much?”

Davos doesn’t have a good answer, but he’s saved from admitting that by a knock on the door.

“Ser Davos!” a page calls. “Lord Stannis seeks your counsel in his study.”

Marya gives Davos a knowing look. “Go.”

He nods, and she leaves, the water she’d animated swishing as it falls back to join the rest.

* * *

Davos hears Shireen before he sees the pyre. He wasn’t told of this new plan, and he understands why.

Dying though he is, he can still make a scene.

“So this is your decision,” he says as he drags himself past the gathered men to place himself between Stannis and Shireen- between his king and a choice Davos cannot let him make. Fury is pooling in his gut, and the millennia of poor choices he’s witnessed weigh on him. “You’ll win the crown as a kinslayer. But not in battle, which would save your honor. No, you’ve trussed your own daughter up like a roast pig, but a pig at least is dead before you put it to the flames.”

Stannis and Selyse, who’s notably been absent for days, turn to look at him.

“It’s the only way,” Selyse says, though she sounds hesitant.

Around them, Davos feels in the shift of water as the trees’ branches sharpen into points.

Davos has never liked Selyse. She was never warm to anyone; even Shireen has only received bursts of affection from her. Yet the fervor for R’hlorr came from her.

He’s never hated her, though. He’s too old to hate her.

But the burnings were too far.

This, whatever it is, is too far.

She brought R’hlorr here. She encouraged her husband to embrace this god.

Melisandre has come and stayed because of Selyse.

Stannis looks grim, but he’s committed to this.

Selyse’s hesitation only makes Stannis’ certainty more stark.

“The kingdom needs to be stable,” Stannis says simply. “This is my duty, Davos.”

“And what of your duty to Shireen?” Davos challenges. “Do you not owe her your protection as her father? As her lord and king, are you not responsible for protecting her from zealots who would burn her? Or are burnings permissible so long as you’re the one ordering them?”

Stannis grinds his teeth. “I owe a greater duty to the kingdom.”

He gestures at a soldier behind Davos, and the torch in his hands moves closer to Shireen and the pyre beneath her feet.

Shireen’s begging rises in pitch, and Davos, who had thought he might at least have time to be careful about this, grabs the torch from the unsuspecting soldier. The movement sends nausea racing through him, but for the moment, the only fire near Stannis’ daughter is the vital heat warming her tears before they spill down her face.

“Davos.”

He’s angered Stannis.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Return the torch.”

“I will not.”

“I’m not asking.”

“And I’m not bargaining.”

Melisandre raises her hands, and Davos raises one of his own to point at her. “Unless you want me to douse the kindling under that girl’s feet with water from your blood, I suggest you let your god intervene on his own.”

He’s never had any interest in that sort of magic, and Davos probably couldn’t extract a tear from her before he passed out, but she doesn’t know that.

Cowed for the moment, Melisandre lowers her hands.

“What are you doing, Davos?” Stannis demands. “You’ve always served me well. I’ve relied on you above all others. You should be celebrating with me. I thought you would be glad to see the war over.”

“Then I must correct you- I want the war to be done, but not like this. I do serve you well, and that’s why I won’t let you become another king whose throne sits on ashes.”

He doesn’t need to specify which king he’s thinking of; Stannis can see the comparison perfectly.

“I’m not Aerys. I don’t enjoy this.”

“Is that supposed to make it better? That they die in agony to make you unhappy?” Davos glances at Shireen, then back at Stannis. “I’m not sure her father’s unhappiness will matter much to her when Shireen is burning to death from the feet up.” 

Stannis’ mouth twitches downward. “You’re disobeying your king, Davos.”

“Then hang me.”

“I know there are ways to kill you.”

“Whispered in your ear by R’hlorr’s servant, no doubt.” Davos forces his hands to unclench. He misses the ocean. “If you want me dead, then you’ll find a way to kill me. But you could make it cleaner and lose fewer men if you let me make my case.”

Stannis narrows his eyes; Davos caught him off-guard.

“Make it.”

Nodding, Davos takes a moment to gather his thoughts, then asks the most important question, the one he absolutely cannot risk Stannis not hearing.

“If Shireen dies, who will be your heir?”

He’s caught Stannis unprepared a second time. It makes Davos’ heart hurt. The man he’s loved wouldn’t forget to plan for such a fundamental question, not when it was Robert’s own lack of heirs that began this war. This bloodthirsty zealot isn’t Stannis; he doesn’t have Stannis’ tenacity or intelligence.

Whoever this is, he isn’t a king of anything.

“What will happen when you die if Shireen is also dead?” Davos continues. “Will Selyse rule? Will you hold the throne for the Baratheons only for another house to take it by marrying one of its sons to your widow?” He shakes his head. “Or will the kingdom fall back into chaos? Will you end one civil war only for a second to take its place?”

Stannis is listening to him, so Davos adds a second thread. “How many more of our children will you kill before R’hlorr decides you may have the throne you could have taken for yourself without shaping yourself into Aerys?”

Reminding him of Aerys was the right decision. He can see the horror sinking in, the disgust at Aerys, who at least had madness to blame his fixation on, and revulsion at being comparable to him twisting Stannis’ features.

Melisandre looks between them. “Stannis-”

Stannis raises a hand of his own, silencing her. “You’ve grown bold, Davos,” he says slowly.

“I am as I’ve always been,” Davos disagrees. “The sea doesn’t change. It’s always just water.”

Stannis studies him for a long moment, and Davos’ heart begins to beat too fast. “Is that all you have to say?”

Here, Davos hesitates. “I do have a question for you.”

“Ask it.”

“What has R’hlorr created?”

The heat from R’hlorr’s fire briefly burns higher, but the men don’t realize it’s the god reminding Davos of his place.

Far away, so far Davos himself can barely feel it, the sea begins to darken.

Stannis is frowning, so Davos clarifies, “It seems to me, your god is good at destroying things, but a kingdom can’t survive when all it has to destroy is itself. So what has R’hlorr done to prove your reign won’t see the kingdom devouring itself? Do you think he’ll give you the healthy son you’ve yet to have?”

In the silence that follows, Shireen whimpers.

Stannis waves at the soldier from earlier. “Cut her down.”

In the chaos that follows, Davos feels almost as if he’s at sea again, his body gone and his thoughts nearly liquid themselves. The shouting that erupts isn’t part of him.

The hard, thirsty ground his body hits is no different than any of the ships crossing the sea.

* * *

It’s one moment, a single choice to have something he wants in the midst of doing what he doesn’t want. The stable is dark around them. Stannis waved away the stable boys when he and Davos arrived. They can unsaddle and brush their own horses.

They brush the horses and lead them to their shared pasture in silence.

Davos carries both saddles; Stannis takes the bridles. They step into the side room where the tack is kept and empty their amfuls, and Davos is about to suggest they grab something for Stannis to eat when Stannis looms over him, tall and tired and unhappy.

“Davos,” is all he says, but Davos has been at Stannis’ side for half of a lifetime. He doesn’t have to be asked to put his hands on Stannis’ hips, and when Stannis sways closer, Davos leans in for the kiss he knows Stannis is desperate for.

Water by its nature is in perpetual flux, but as Stannis pulls Davos in and kisses him hard, Davos would keep this much of himself the same until his eventual death.

This is where Lord Stannis Baratheon chose want over duty; it ought to be remembered.

It is remembered, but only by the two of them. Stannis pulls back and says no- to which of them, Davos can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter. The moment for Stannis to want someone has passed.

Davos doesn’t begrudge him the kiss. He wanted another- he still wants another, but it’s a faraway feeling. Stannis gave and took as much as he could. Davos isn’t the ocean; he can’t remake a man, no matter how much he wants to.

* * *

Davos wakes up in a bucket of water in Shireen’s tent. She’s asleep beside it, one arm curled around it. Her pillow is wet, as is her face, but she’s alive.

He can guess what happened.

Reconstructing his human shape is difficult and takes a long time. Shireen doesn’t so much as stir as Davos shapes himself into a man.

“She wouldn’t let anyone else have it,” Stannis says.

Davos heard him come in and doesn’t startle at the sound of his voice. “Was I gone long?”

“A day a half- is that long?”

Davos hasn’t been sent back to the sea in at least a hundred years, and that time, he’d been banished by an angry worshiper of the Old Gods.

In the span of his life, Davos can barely comprehend how small a day and a half is.

“I’m not sure, Your Grace. I haven’t been returned to base water in a long time.”

Stannis nods. “Will you be returning to it again?”

“Eventually,” Davos replies. “If you mean whether I’m returning now, that’s up to you. I serve you. If you would have me leave, then I will leave. If it’s your desire that I stay, then I will stay.”

Stannis nods again. “Good. There’s much that needs to be repaired, and I’ll need your thoughts on how best to do it.”

“And Melisandre? Will she not object?”

“I couldn’t begin to guess. She and my wife left just after dawn.” Davos winces, but Stannis continues, “Melisandre knew her god’s welcome in my camp was over, and Selyse wasn’t ready to let go. Our divorce was simple.”

Guilt washes over Davos but can’t drown the relief that inspired it. “She didn’t insist on taking Shireen?”

“She will have no home now, nothing to protect her. She refused to accept any escort save Melisandre. Even with the witch, it won’t be safe for a lady, much less a child. She understood that.” Stannis looks past Davos to Shireen, and the lines on his face deepen. “You were correct to speak as you did.”

Davos opens his mouth to remind Stannis that of all men, Stannis ought to know Davos was only doing his sworn duty, but he doesn’t get the opportunity to speak. Stannis steps too close and bends his knees, and suddenly, the kiss in the stable isn’t a single break in Stannis’ resolve, never to be repeated.

“You’re needed here,” Stannis breathes. “The sea can wait.”

Davos draws a shaky breath. “For a time.”

“Davos.”

“I’ll stay with you until you send me back,” Davos promises. “The sea won’t take me early. Does that suit you?”

“It will do.”

Stannis’ heart is beating hard; Davos can feel his blood pounding.

A second kiss stops Stannis’ heart.

The third makes it race.

“I have responsibilities beyond this tent,” he says against Davos’ lips.

“And I only have one foot.”

Stannis pulls back, already frowning again. “I’ll need you in planning the future of this campaign. Not yet, but soon.”

“I’ll be there.”

Davos leans in and gets a fourth and final kiss, which lasts until a man shouts not far from the tent.

Stannis pulls back slowly. “I’ll need you tonight.”

Davos lets out a breath. “Until tonight, then.”

Stannis disappears without another word, leaving Davos to finish reconstructing himself in peace.

By the time Shireen wakes up, Davos is whole again.

She stumbles over to him and sobs his name into his neck, her arms snapping around him like she thinks he might not want to stay.

He squeezes her hard. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I’m sorry for it all.”

She’s already crying, and Davos holds her through the sobs and hiccups that make her shake.

“You’re all right,” he reminds her. “You’re gonna be all right.”

She doesn’t reply, but he knows she can hear him. No one else has thought to reassure her, so he lets her tears soak the neck of his borrowed tunic and rubs her back through her broken screams.

“It won’t happen again,” he promises. “I’m not trying to hurry you; I just need you to hear it. He’s done with the Lord of Light. No more sacrifices. No more fires.”

She doesn’t so much as nod, and her crying only gets louder. He doesn’t mind it. The sea is full of screams; he has room for those from one more frightened girl.

“No more fires,” he’s reminding her again, the hollow sound of her breath rattling in her chest more terrifying than he wants to admit, when she finally pulls out of his hold.

She sniffs hard and asks, “You swear?”

“By every god you can name and all the ones you can’t.”

She bites her lip; she wants to be soothed but isn’t ready to be.

“You know, there was a saying when I was a man that the ocean shouldn’t measured in distance but in levels of fear.” He brushes a lock of hair from her face. “The ocean can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t care about men and their fears. But I can tell you this- the ocean is made of water, and so are you.”

“All water is water,” she replies, and Davos feels himself smile.

“That’s right. Water looks after its own, and it doesn’t forget. You don’t have to stop being scared right now, but you don’t have to make yourself remember either. Let the water hold a grudge for you. If you can’t sleep from fear or the fire comes into your dreams, think about the ocean and let it smother the fire. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Davos,” she says dutifully.

“Good girl. Now, if you wash your face, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

She looks at him curiously, but he doesn’t explain until she’s washed and followed him out of the camp and out to the line of trees near where they spoke the night before her father nearly made a greater liar of him than Davos would have thought possible.

“What are we looking for, Davos?” she asks.

“Who, actually,” Davos replies, just as a familiar face appears before them.

Shireen squeezes his hand in fear, and Davos squeezes hers gently in reassurance.

“Hello, cousin,” he says in greeting. “I saw you earlier, didn’t I?”

The man in the woods nods, his great, branching antlers scraping the branches.

“I thought I should assure you and the others that it’s over. The army will be leaving, and the king will not be calling upon the Lord of Light again.”

The man nods again, his inhuman eyes glowing softly.

“Why doesn’t he speak?” Shireen asks.

“It’s part of what makes him what he is,” Davos explains. “He gave up his voice.”

The man tilts his head for a moment before he shakes it and raises a brow at Davos.

“I’ve spoken to the water, yes. It will return here- and to the creek that ran dry, if you wish.” Sensing the man’s disbelief, Davos looks down at Shireen. “If all goes well, this girl will be queen after her father. If the land hates him, she’ll inherit that.”

The man smiles and inclines his head.

“Then, unless you have other business, we should be going.”

The man holds up a finger and reaches into a bag at his hip with the other. A moment later, he pulls his hand out and tosses something at Davos, who catches it with his free hand.

“Is that an onion?” Shireen asks.

Davos chuckles. “I thought you looked familiar. It’s good to see you again.”

He gets a smile in return before the man turns and walks back into the woods, disappearing in moments.

“Let’s go back,” Davos says, nudging Shireen away.

“Why don’t your eyes do that, Davos?” she asks as she falls into step with him.

“I suppose the water just doesn’t like me as much as the earth likes him.”

She hums a little to herself, mulling it over as they walk back to the camp.

“Father likes you enough for him and the water,” she decides.

Davos swallows. “Shireen…”

She smiles up at him, but it’s plain she’s forcing it. “I’ve always known he likes you best. I used to be jealous, a little, but you’re always kind to me, and you saved me, so I’m not-” She looks away and rubs at her eyes with the heel of one hand. “I’m not mad he loves you, Davos.”

He squeezes her hand. “We’ve got a few hours before your father will need me. There’s a lake not far from here. Would you like to look and see if it’s got any fish?”

She nods. “Yes, please.”

Davos leads her away from the camp, yet again on the path he took to bury Matthos, but this time, there’s a breeze that makes Shireen clutch at her shawl. She says nothing, but the chill brings a flush to her cheeks.

It’s good for her to feel the cold.

When they arrive, he listens to her marvel at how clear the water is and gasp at how colorful the fish are. She dips her fingers into the water and giggles when the fish swim up to nibble on them.

The war is far from over, and the White Walkers are still gathering.

But in this clearing, the girl Davos raised is playing in the water his son purified, the grass is already beginning to regrow, and across the camp, the girl’s father is rousing his fractured army with the same grim determination he’s carried with him all his life.

The ocean calls to him; Davos promises he’ll come home to it.

Men’s lives are fleeting. The water can wait another one before it calls him back.

**Author's Note:**

> the eulogy davos gives is slightly cribbed from henry peglar's poem in _the terror_, and the bit about the ocean being measured in fear was bastardized from a quotation that's probably from buzzy trent


End file.
